Tuesday, January 01, 2013

Happy Happy New Year!

2012 is gone and 2013 is here. Now what? After quite a long blogging hiatus, unintentional and unplanned of course, I'm getting back to it, so here I am. There will be more art made this year, 2012 was quite a year of fallowness for me. Not a whole lot got done, and I felt stymied and uninspired to create. The blockage was created out of many things, and I picked the knot apart all the past year and figured my way out of the mess.

At least I think so.
The picture above is a detail of a small rug that my husband brought back from a recent trip to India. I believe it is probably intended to be a prayer rug because of the size, and it feels like silk. We are not going to put it on the floor, because it would get ruined immediately. Instead I plan to hang it on the wall. The colors are intense and the design is lovely, I see something new every time I look at it.

A couple years ago I did a weekly six-word memoir quiltlet, and that was a really useful and inspiring exercise. This year I am going to do a daily one. Daily, because I need to get back into the daily art making process. That's what it all comes down to for me, the art doesn't happen unless I'm in the studio.
Many other quilt artists pick a size for projects like this and then stick with it all year, but I know myself and I just can't bring myself to put constraints like that on such a project. I am going to start out trying a 9x9" shape and see how it goes, if I like it, then I'll stick with it until I don't. Hey, it's for me right? The only rules are that there are to be 9 words somewhere on it, including on the back. Because I found with the six-word project, that sometimes the words don't need to be seen. I'll be posting those here in groups of three. Yes, you're right, it's all multiples of three.

New Year's Day has such a different feel than any other of the whole year. Anticipation of what's to come is high, there's freshness and newness that is unlike any other day. It just feels more momentous somehow, the things I choose to do today, as if they'll echo throughout the year coloring it all with the intention and focus I bring to what I create. So I'm choosing to make some art, make some good food, go for a good walk, those sorts of things. I hope and wish for you a wonderful year ahead, may we all have good fortune, abundant health, and joyful inspiration.